Hampton Iona AGM – May 4th

Hampton Iona Community Group Invites the Community to our AGM on May 4th

On Thursday May 4th at 7:00 pm the Hampton Iona Community Group will be holding our Annual General Meeting in the Community Kitchen (2nd floor) at the Loblaws Superstore on Richmond Road.

Since our last AGM, Hampton Iona Community Group (HICG) has been active in running our skating rink, hosting our annual winter carnival, spearheading and planning an all-candidates debate for the past Federal election, addressing a number of in-fill projects throughout the neighbourhood and working with the Federation of Citizens’ Associations (FCA) to address common community issues.

As always, we are pleased to be able to operate our community rink in Iona Park and hold our annual winter carnival. Thanks to our rink volunteers and attendants we have been able to maintain excellent quality ice. This year also saw our park getting a new (used) trailer. While not apparent in the winter, a group of neighbours also started to plant flowers around the new trailer and we hope to enhance this new garden in 2017.

In Fall 2015, we held one of our best attended all-candidates debate for the federal election. The debate was organized by a team led by Judith Shane and moderated by Amanda Pfeffer of CBC.

I would like to thank our dedicated board members who have served our community well over the past 18 months: Marg Hillier, Jen Stelzer, Dan Pascoli, Ken Hoffman, Grant McSheffrey, Judith Shane, Mira Svoboda, Joey Drouin and Ian Thomson. We wish to especially acknowledge Jen, Dan and Marg who are stepping down after several years of service to our community.

Unfortunately, there are many more things that we wished that we could have addressed since our last AGM, but with our volunteer base stretched thin, we have not be able to respond to many of the challenges facing our community. With several of our members stepping down, we need more people to step forward to take their place. While we have not been able to address some of the larger policy and development issues facing the City and our community, we have been able to make our voice heard through the FCA on these issues. If we don’t have new volunteers, our ability to address issues will be limited.

From helping to organize our rink and winter carnival and all-candidate debates, to assisting in enhancing our parks to development issues, there is a wide range of issues with which you can get involved. We are always looking for new ways to engage with the community from developing community gardens, improvements to Iona Park to outreach with our new neighbours in the condos along Richmond Road. We can only do these things if we have a strong core of engaged volunteers. Many of you have benefited from the work we have done over the past years, and we hope that some of you will consider joining our board or committees.

Our keynote speaker will be our very own Grant McSheffrey, who recently appeared on the game show Jeopardy! over four nights. Grant will share his experiences in getting on the show and what it was like to be a winning game show participant.

As per our rules regarding elections, if you are interested in running for an executive position (President, Vice-President, Treasurer or Secretary) we ask that you submit your name to Marg Hillier (mhillier144@gmail.com) by April 23rd, 5 pm. Non-executive board members can sign up right until the night of the AGM. If more than one candidate is nominated we will have an election for that position. If no one has put their name forward for an executive position in advance, the new board will select from within. The candidates will be advised after April 23rd if there will be an election for their position.